Tag Archives: Body Parts

Today was our first day back at story hour. It seemed like no time had gone by at all! Except, of course, that the children had grown. They just keep doing that 🙂

I like to start off the new year talking about them! I’m super excited about the activity we did to kick things off! On a large piece of paper, I drew a simple outline of a tree with a bunch of big circles inside. The circles were not just apples, but were meant to represent each child in the group. As they arrived, I called each child over to pick a favorite color and color in the “apple”. Then I labeled each one with their name, age, and a favorite toy or thing to do. Not only did we have a lovely little art project, but I got to know something about them and can use that information to plan future story hours!

In the past, I used books mostly about Körperteile – or parts of the body. But I wanted to also talk about things they like to do. So I used one story about a girl named Frieda who loves to dance. We did include one about the body. And then I couldn’t resist reading the Elephant & Piggie book, Das Buch über uns. The kids just love it! Especially if you use voices 😉

After we wore ourselves out singing “Das Lied über mich” (I think the moms enjoyed it even more than the kiddos!), the children had a choice of coloring a picture of themselves or filling out a Steckbrief! Some chose to do both 🙂

We did a review of body parts in school this morning. I reviewed the body parts we learned at our last lesson and added a few more:

die Haare

der Arm

der Hand

das Bein

We sang “Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß” again. It’s such a great song for this age group! It gets them involved and active. Plus, they already know the melody and get the idea of the song. Makes it easy to teach it! I think last time we sang the song, we all just stayed seated. But I found that having them stand and do it helped get them more into it. I’ll remember that for next time, too!

We read a different book this time: Das bin ich. Ich zeig es dir by Heinz Janisch (Tyrolia, 2015). It’s a really fun rhyming book that introduces all the main body parts. And ends with a laugh and smile in the mirror! I decided not to translate it for them, as I often do. Instead, I read the page and then asked them where the body part was.

For our first session of Lesestunde (Story Hour), I like to do a topic that is all about “ME!” So we read books and sing songs about the body and feelings. For the end of the session, I prepared a few variations of activities, so the children could also report on themselves.

We played this game during story hour last week, and it was a big hit! It probably would have helped to do a quick review of the six body parts in the game before we started playing. Next time! We played the simpler version of the game. Even though there was no competition involved – and hence no winner – the children really enjoyed it. They wanted to take it home, but we decided to save the game boards and body parts to play again at another story hour 🙂

Here’s how it works:

Preparations:

Download the Körpertiele Spiel document above.

Print out the images of the boys, one color (p. 2) and one grayscale (p. 3), per player. Print on cardstock, or you can laminate them for longer use!

Cut out the colored image of the boy. Then cut him up into body parts: head, arms, hands, torso, legs, and feet.

Print out one copy of the page with the body parts in squares. Again, laminate if you wish. Cut out the squares and tape them to the foam die.

Additional materials (optional):

2½-inch foam die

Rules of the game:

Each child gets a “game board” with a grayscale image of the boy and one set of body parts in color.

Children take turns rolling the die. Whatever body part s/he rolls, s/he can put on to the grayscale body.

The first child to complete the boy wins!

*If you don’t have a die, you could use the squares as cards, and children take turns drawing a card.

*Of course, when they roll a body part, they have to say the word!

For a simpler version with younger children:

Children take turns rolling the die.

Each child says the name of the body part, while all children add the body part to their grayscale body pictures.

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Willkommen!

Hi there! I’m a non-native speaker of German raising my two boys to be bilingual.
Froggy was born in 2009 and is now starting 2nd grade.
Hippo was born in 2012 and is in his second year of pre-school.
My husband PER is from the Netherlands, but he doesn’t speak Dutch with the kids. Although he will read books in Dutch to them sometimes.
We have our 4th au pair (AP4) with us this year. She’s from Germany.
I’m often creating materials for the boys, and I wanted a way to share them with other German-speaking families. You can download all of the materials I post for FREE!